Tawakel Karman
Encyclopedia
Tawakel Karman (Anglicised: Tawakul, Tawakkol, Tawakkul or Tawakel Abdel-Salam Karman) (born 7 February 1979) became the international public face of the 2011 Yemeni uprising
that is part of the Arab Spring
uprisings. She has been called by Yemenis the "Iron Woman" and "Mother of the Revolution." She is a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize
, becoming the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman, and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize
.
Karman is a Yemen
i journalist, politician and senior member of Al-Islah
political party, and human rights activist
who heads the group "Women Journalists Without Chains," which she co-founded in 2005. She gained prominence in her country after 2005 in her roles as a Yemeni journalist and an advocate for a mobile phone news service denied a license in 2007, after which she led protests for press freedom. She organised weekly protests after May 2007 expanding the issues for reform. She redirected the Yemini protests to support the "Jasmine Revolution," as she calls the Arab Spring, after the Tunisian people overthrew
the government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali
in January 2011. She has been a vocal opponent who has called for the end of President's Ali Abdullah Saleh
regime.
province, Yemen. She grew up near Taiz, which is the third largest city in Yemen and is described as a place of learning in a conservative country. She is the daughter of Abdel Salam Karman, a lawyer and politician, who once served and later resigned as Legal Affairs Minister in Ali Abdullah Saleh's government. She is the sister of Tariq Karman, who is a poet, and Safa Karman, who works for Al-Jazeera. She is married to Mohammed al-Nahmi and is the mother of three children.
Karman earned an undergraduate degree in commerce from the University of Science and Technology, Sana'a
and a graduate degree in political science from the University of Sana'a.
At a protest in 2010, a woman attempted to stab her with a jambiya
but Karman's supporters managed to stop the assault.
According to Tariq Karman, "a senior Yemeni official" threatened his sister Tawakel with death in a telephone call on 26 January 2011 if she continued her public protests. According to Dexter Filkins
, writing in The New Yorker
, the official was President Saleh.
news services, which had been tightly controlled by the government despite not falling under the purview of the Press Law of 1990. After a governmental review of the text services, the only service that was not granted a license to continue was Bilakoyood, which belonged to WJWC and had operated for a year. In 2007, WJWC released a report that documented Yemeni abuses of press freedom since 2005. In 2009, she criticised the Ministry of Information for establishing trials that targeted journalists. From 2007 to 2010, Karman regularly led demonstrations and sit-in
s in Tahrir Square, Sana'a
.
Tawakel Karman was affiliated with the Al-Thawrah newspaper at the time she founded WJWC in March 2005. She is also a member of the Yemeni Journalists' Syndicate.
and holds a position on its Shura Council
, which is a party position.
Karman started protests as an advocate for press freedoms in her country. At a time when she was advocating for more press freedom, she responded to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
in 2005 by writing: "We are not to call for tyranny and bans on freedom."
She stopped wearing the traditional niqab
in favour of more colourful hijabs
that showed her face. She first appeared without the niqab at a conference in 2004. Karman replaced the niqab for the scarf in public on national television to make her point that the full covering is cultural and not dictated by Islam. She told the Yemen Times
in 2010 that:
She has alleged that many Yemeni girls suffer from malnutrition so that boys could be fed and also called attention to high illiteracy rates, which includes two-thirds of Yemeni women. She has advocated for laws that would prevent females younger than 17 from being married.
Karman took a different stand on marriage law than others in the Al-Islah party but she claims it is the party most open to women. In clarifying her position, she said:
She has also led protests against government corruption. Her stand on the ouster of Saleh became stronger after village lands of families around the city of Ibb
were appropriated by a corrupt local leader.
She is a moderate in a political party with more conservative members who have formed a coalition to oppose Saleh and the status quo.
Her membership in Al-Islah is controversial because of Abdul Majeed al-Zindani's membership in the same party. Zindani was the head of the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood and is currently the head of the Salafi
wing of the party, which has taken more conservative stances on women and marriage. He is also listed on the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control
's Specially Designated Nationals List, a list which the U.S. has used to prevent money from being transferred from charities or businesses to terrorist groups. Zindani has long been associated with Anwar al-Awlaki
, who was killed by a U.S. Hellfire missile fired in a drone attack 30 September 2011. The United States linked Awlaki to terrorist attacks and Al-Qaeda
. Yemeni journalist Nasir Arrabayee reported that the last three locations where sources said Awlaki had visited were either the home of a relative or the homes of Al-Islah members, including the home of Zindani.
Karman, who claims independence from the party line, said, "I do not represent the Al-Islah party, and I am not tied to its positions. My position is determined by my beliefs, and I do not ask anyone's permission."
Likewise, she says she remains independent from foreign influences: "I do have close strategic ties with American organizations involved in protecting human rights, with American ambassadors and with officials in the U.S. State Department. (I also have ties with activists in) most of the E.U. and Arab countries. But they are ties among equals; (I am not) their subordinate."
Speaking before an audience at the University of Michigan, Karman summed up her belief: "I am a citizen of the world. The Earth is my country, and humanity is my nation."
in protest against the long-standing rule of Saleh's government. On 22 January, she was stopped while driving with her husband by three plain-clothed men without police identification and taken to prison, where she was held for 36 hours until she was released on parole on 24 January. In a 9 April editorial that appeared in The Guardian
, she wrote:
She then led another protest on 29 January where she called for a "Day of Rage" on 3 February similar to that of the 2011 Egyptian revolution
that were in turn inspired by the 2010–2011 Tunisian revolution
. On 17 March, she was re-arrested amidst ongoing protests. Speaking of the uprising she had said that: "We will continue until the fall of Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime...We have the Southern Movement in the south, the (Shia) Huthi rebels in the north, and parliamentary opposition...But what's most important now is the jasmine revolution." She has set at the protest camp for months along with her husband.
Karman has had some tense disagreements with other organisers, especially after she urged protesters to march to the Presidential Palace in May as a response to the killing of 13 protesters by security forces.
On 18 June she wrote an article entitled "Yemen's Unfinished Revolution" in the New York Times in which she assailed the United States and Saudi Arabia for their support for the "corrupt" Saleh regime in Yemen because they "used their influence to ensure that members of the old regime remain in power and the status quo is maintained." She argued that American intervention in Yemen was motivated by the war on terror
and was not responsive to either the human rights abuses in Yemen or the calls from Yemen’s democracy movement. She affirmed that the protesters in Yemen also wanted stability in the country and region. In an interview on Democracy Now!
, Karman said, "In our weekly protests in front of the cabinet, we called on the government to allow people to have freedom of speech and for people to be able to own online newspapers. We knew and know that freedom of speech is the door to democracy and justice, and also that part of the freedom of speech is the freedom of movement... The culture of freedom and protests spread all over Yemen. Every time we stood up for our rights the government answered with violence or interfered in our rights...." She credited Tunisia for inspiring others around the Middle East for the Arab Spring protests.
During the protests, Karman was part of a large number of women activists -- up to 30 percent of the protestors -- demanding change in Yemen. On 16 October, government snipers in Taiz shot and killed Aziza Othman Kaleb, CNN
reported she was the first woman to have been killed during the Yemen protests but could not verify this claim. Ten days later, women in Sana'a protested against the violent force used against them by burning their makrama.
Karman travelled to Washington, D.C., where she said that the protests as "an expression of rejection of the injustice that the Saleh regime has imposed on them. And this is a new stage for the Yemeni women, because they will not hide behind veils or behind walls or anything else." She was then said to have lobbied the United Nations Security Council and the United States not to make deal that would pardon Saleh, to freeze his assets and to support the protesters. The United Nations Security Council
then voted 15-0 on 21 October on Security Council Resolution 2014 that "strongly condemns" Saleh's government for the use of deadly force against protesters, but it also backed the Gulf Cooperation Council's (GCC) initiative that would give Saleh immunity from prosecution should he resign. Karman, who was present for the vote, criticised the Council's support for the GCC's proposal and instead advocated that Saleh stand trial at the International Criminal Court
.
Karman also met the United States' Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
on 28 October to discuss the same United Nations Resolution, to which Clinton said that "the United States supports a democratic transition in Yemen and the rights of the people of Yemen – men and women – to choose their own leaders and futures." Karman responded to the comment in saying that "in Yemen, it has been nine months that people have been camped in the squares. Until now we didn't see that Obama
came to value the sacrifice of the Yemeni people. Instead the American administration is giving guarantees to Saleh."
was the first Persian woman and first muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Before the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded, only 12 other women had ever been recipients in its 110 years, and now there are 15 women.
Karman, along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee
, were the co-recipients of the the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize
"for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work." Of Karman, the Nobel Committee said: "In the most trying circumstances, both before and during the 'Arab spring', Tawakkul Karman has played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen." The Nobel Committee cited the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted in 2000, which states that women and children suffer great harm from war and political stability and that women must have a larger influence and role in peacemaking activities; it also "[c]alls on all actors involved, when negotiating and implementing peace agreements, to adopt a gender perspective."
Upon announcing the award, former Norwegian Prime Minister and chairman of the committee to decide the award Thorbjorn Jagland said: "We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society." He later added that the prize was "a very important signal to women all over the world" and that, despite the events of the Arab Spring
, "there are many other positive developments in the world that we have looked at. I think it is a little strange that researchers and others have not seen them." He had earlier said the prize for the year would be "very powerful... but at the same time very unifying [and would] not create as strong reactions from a single country as it did last year [with Liu Xiaobo
]." The 2011 prize is to be divided equally among the three recipients, from a total of 10 million Swedish kronor.
In reaction to the award Karman, while camped out in Sana'a during ongoing anti-government protests, said: "I didn’t expect it. It came as a total surprise. This is a victory for Arabs around the world and a victory for Arab women" and that the award was a "victory of our peaceful revolution. I am so happy, and I give this award to all of the youth and all of the women across the Arab world, in Egypt, in Tunisia. We cannot build our country or any country in the world without peace," adding that it was also for "Libya, Syria and Yemen and all the youth and women, this is a victory for our demand for citizenship and human rights," that "all Yemenis [are] happy over the prize. The fight for democratic Yemen will continue," that she "dedicate[s] it to all the martyrs and wounded of the Arab Spring… in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Syria and to all the free people who are fighting for their rights and freedoms" and "I dedicate it to all Yemenis who preferred to make their revolution peaceful by facing the snipers with flowers. It is for the Yemeni women, for the peaceful protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, and all the Arab world." She also said she had not known about the nomination and had found out about the award via television.
where she met with Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and also requested the Doha Centre for Media Freedom's assistance to set up a television and radio station, which would be named Balqis, in honour of the Queen of Sheba, in order to support female journalists and to broadly educate Yemeni journalists.
She also made a video message in Washington, D.C. on 25 October on the occasion of the release of the 14th annual report of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (OBS) by the International Federation of Human Rights
(FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture
(OMCT). The report included information about the Arab Spring
, Yemen, and Karman.
She has been selected as the first place of the FB top 100 global thinkers of 2011.Moh441 (talk) 22:11, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
2011 Yemeni uprising
The 2011 Yemen Uprising followed the initial stages of the Tunisian Revolution and occurred simultaneously with the Egyptian Revolution and other mass protests in the Middle East in early 2011. In its early phase, protests in Yemen were initially against unemployment, economic conditions and...
that is part of the Arab Spring
Arab Spring
The Arab Spring , otherwise known as the Arab Awakening, is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world that began on Saturday, 18 December 2010...
uprisings. She has been called by Yemenis the "Iron Woman" and "Mother of the Revolution." She is a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
, becoming the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman, and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
.
Karman is a Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
i journalist, politician and senior member of Al-Islah
Al-Islah
The Yemeni Congregation for Reform, frequently called Islah or Al-Islah, , is the main opposition party in Yemen. At the last legislative elections, 27 April 2003, the party won 22.6 % of the popular vote and 46 out of 301 seats.-Foundation:...
political party, and human rights activist
Human rights in Yemen
The situation for Human Rights in Yemen is rather poor. The security forces have been responsible for torture, inhumane treatment and even extrajudicial executions. But according to the Embassy of Yemen, in recent years there has been some improvement, with the government signing several...
who heads the group "Women Journalists Without Chains," which she co-founded in 2005. She gained prominence in her country after 2005 in her roles as a Yemeni journalist and an advocate for a mobile phone news service denied a license in 2007, after which she led protests for press freedom. She organised weekly protests after May 2007 expanding the issues for reform. She redirected the Yemini protests to support the "Jasmine Revolution," as she calls the Arab Spring, after the Tunisian people overthrew
Tunisian revolution
The Tunisian Revolution is an intensive campaign of civil resistance, including a series of street demonstrations taking place in Tunisia. The events began in December 2010 and led to the ousting of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011...
the government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali is a Tunisian political figure who was the second President of Tunisia from 1987 to 2011. Ben Ali was appointed Prime Minister in October 1987, and he assumed the Presidency on 7 November 1987 in a bloodless coup d'état that ousted President Habib Bourguiba, who was...
in January 2011. She has been a vocal opponent who has called for the end of President's Ali Abdullah Saleh
Ali Abdullah Saleh
Field Marshal Ali Abdullah Saleh is the first President of the Republic of Yemen. Saleh previously served as President of the Yemen Arab Republic from 1978 until 1990, at which time he assumed the office of chairman of the Presidential Council of a post-unification Yemen. He is the...
regime.
Personal life
Tawakel Karman was born on 7 February 1979 in Mekhlaf, Ta'izzTa'izz Governorate
Ta'izz is a governorate of Yemen. The governorate's capital is Ta'izz, which is the third largest city in Yemen. Other major towns include Al Sawa, Juha and the famous coffee port of Mocha. It has a total population of just over three million and an area of 10,677km².For such a small area, Ta'izz...
province, Yemen. She grew up near Taiz, which is the third largest city in Yemen and is described as a place of learning in a conservative country. She is the daughter of Abdel Salam Karman, a lawyer and politician, who once served and later resigned as Legal Affairs Minister in Ali Abdullah Saleh's government. She is the sister of Tariq Karman, who is a poet, and Safa Karman, who works for Al-Jazeera. She is married to Mohammed al-Nahmi and is the mother of three children.
Karman earned an undergraduate degree in commerce from the University of Science and Technology, Sana'a
University of Science and Technology, Sana'a
University of Science and Technology is a private university in Sana'a, Yemen. It was established in 1994 as the College of Science and Technology by Dr...
and a graduate degree in political science from the University of Sana'a.
At a protest in 2010, a woman attempted to stab her with a jambiya
Jambiya
Janbiya, also spelt janbia, jambiya, and jambia, , is the Arabic term for dagger, but it is generally used to describe a specific type of dagger with a short curved blade that is worn on a belt. Although the term jambiya is also used in other Arab countries, it is mostly associated with people of...
but Karman's supporters managed to stop the assault.
According to Tariq Karman, "a senior Yemeni official" threatened his sister Tawakel with death in a telephone call on 26 January 2011 if she continued her public protests. According to Dexter Filkins
Dexter Filkins
Dexter Price Filkins is an American journalist known primarily for his coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for The New York Times. He was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for his dispatches from Afghanistan, and he won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009 as part of a team of New York Times...
, writing in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, the official was President Saleh.
Women Journalists Without Chains
Tawakel Karman co-founded the human rights group Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC) with seven other female journalists in 2005 in order to promote human rights, "particularly freedom of opinion and expression, and democratic rights." Although it was founded as "Female Reporters Without Borders," the present name was adopted in order to get a government license. Karman has said she has received "threats and temptations" and was the target of harrassment from the Yemeni authorities by telephone and letter because of her refusal to accept the Ministry of Information rejection of WJWC's application to legally create a newspaper and a radio station. The group advocated freedom for SMSSMS
SMS is a form of text messaging communication on phones and mobile phones. The terms SMS or sms may also refer to:- Computer hardware :...
news services, which had been tightly controlled by the government despite not falling under the purview of the Press Law of 1990. After a governmental review of the text services, the only service that was not granted a license to continue was Bilakoyood, which belonged to WJWC and had operated for a year. In 2007, WJWC released a report that documented Yemeni abuses of press freedom since 2005. In 2009, she criticised the Ministry of Information for establishing trials that targeted journalists. From 2007 to 2010, Karman regularly led demonstrations and sit-in
Sit-in
A sit-in or sit-down is a form of protest that involves occupying seats or sitting down on the floor of an establishment.-Process:In a sit-in, protesters remain until they are evicted, usually by force, or arrested, or until their requests have been met...
s in Tahrir Square, Sana'a
Tahrir Square, Sana'a
Al-Tahrir Square, also Al-Tahreer Square or Tahreer Square is a square in central Sana'a, Yemen. It is located west of the Abbas Mosque and the Sultan Palace Hotel, south of the National Museum of Yemen and north of the Yemen Military Museum.Protests took place here during the 2011 Yemeni uprising...
.
Tawakel Karman was affiliated with the Al-Thawrah newspaper at the time she founded WJWC in March 2005. She is also a member of the Yemeni Journalists' Syndicate.
Political positions
Tawakel Karman is a member of the opposition party Al-IslahAl-Islah
The Yemeni Congregation for Reform, frequently called Islah or Al-Islah, , is the main opposition party in Yemen. At the last legislative elections, 27 April 2003, the party won 22.6 % of the popular vote and 46 out of 301 seats.-Foundation:...
and holds a position on its Shura Council
Shura Council
The Shura Council is the upper house of Egyptian bicameral Parliament. Its name roughly translates into English as "the Consultative Council". The lower house of parliament is the People's Assembly....
, which is a party position.
Karman started protests as an advocate for press freedoms in her country. At a time when she was advocating for more press freedom, she responded to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after 12 editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005...
in 2005 by writing: "We are not to call for tyranny and bans on freedom."
She stopped wearing the traditional niqab
Niqab
A niqab is a cloth which covers the face, worn by some Muslim women as a part of sartorial hijāb...
in favour of more colourful hijabs
Hijab
The word "hijab" or "'" refers to both the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women and modest Muslim styles of dress in general....
that showed her face. She first appeared without the niqab at a conference in 2004. Karman replaced the niqab for the scarf in public on national television to make her point that the full covering is cultural and not dictated by Islam. She told the Yemen Times
Yemen Times
The Yemen Times is unified Yemen's first and most widely-read independent English-language newspaper. The paper is published twice-weekly and has its own printing press, advertising associates and news service....
in 2010 that:
Women should stop being or feeling that they are part of the problem and become part of the solution. We have been marginalized for a long time, and now is the time for women to stand up and become active without needing to ask for permission or acceptance. This is the only way we will give back to our society and allow for Yemen to reach the great potentials it has.
She has alleged that many Yemeni girls suffer from malnutrition so that boys could be fed and also called attention to high illiteracy rates, which includes two-thirds of Yemeni women. She has advocated for laws that would prevent females younger than 17 from being married.
Karman took a different stand on marriage law than others in the Al-Islah party but she claims it is the party most open to women. In clarifying her position, she said:
Our party needs the youth but the youth also need the parties to help them organise. Neither will succeed in overthrowing this regime without the other. We don't want the international community to label our revolution an Islamic one.
She has also led protests against government corruption. Her stand on the ouster of Saleh became stronger after village lands of families around the city of Ibb
Ibb
Ibb is a city in Yemen, the capital of Ibb Governorate, situated on a mountain ridge, surrounded by fertile land and is known as "The Green City". It is located about 73 miles north-east of Mocha. Ibb was governed by a semi-autonomous emir until 1944, when the emirate was abolished...
were appropriated by a corrupt local leader.
She is a moderate in a political party with more conservative members who have formed a coalition to oppose Saleh and the status quo.
Her membership in Al-Islah is controversial because of Abdul Majeed al-Zindani's membership in the same party. Zindani was the head of the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood and is currently the head of the Salafi
Salafi
A Salafi come from Sunni Islam is a follower of an Islamic movement, Salafiyyah, that is supposed to take the Salaf who lived during the patristic period of early Islam as model examples...
wing of the party, which has taken more conservative stances on women and marriage. He is also listed on the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control
Office of Foreign Assets Control
The Office of Foreign Assets Control is an agency of the United States Department of the Treasury under the auspices of the Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. OFAC administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on U.S...
's Specially Designated Nationals List, a list which the U.S. has used to prevent money from being transferred from charities or businesses to terrorist groups. Zindani has long been associated with Anwar al-Awlaki
Anwar al-Awlaki
Anwar al-Awlaki was an American and Yemeni imam who was an engineer and educator by training. According to U.S. government officials, he was a senior talent recruiter and motivator who was involved with planning operations for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda...
, who was killed by a U.S. Hellfire missile fired in a drone attack 30 September 2011. The United States linked Awlaki to terrorist attacks and Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
. Yemeni journalist Nasir Arrabayee reported that the last three locations where sources said Awlaki had visited were either the home of a relative or the homes of Al-Islah members, including the home of Zindani.
Karman, who claims independence from the party line, said, "I do not represent the Al-Islah party, and I am not tied to its positions. My position is determined by my beliefs, and I do not ask anyone's permission."
Likewise, she says she remains independent from foreign influences: "I do have close strategic ties with American organizations involved in protecting human rights, with American ambassadors and with officials in the U.S. State Department. (I also have ties with activists in) most of the E.U. and Arab countries. But they are ties among equals; (I am not) their subordinate."
Speaking before an audience at the University of Michigan, Karman summed up her belief: "I am a citizen of the world. The Earth is my country, and humanity is my nation."
2011 protests
During the ongoing 2011 Yemeni protests, Tawakel Karman organised student rallies in Sana'aSana'a
-Districts:*Al Wahdah District*As Sabain District*Assafi'yah District*At Tahrir District*Ath'thaorah District*Az'zal District*Bani Al Harith District*Ma'ain District*Old City District*Shu'aub District-Old City:...
in protest against the long-standing rule of Saleh's government. On 22 January, she was stopped while driving with her husband by three plain-clothed men without police identification and taken to prison, where she was held for 36 hours until she was released on parole on 24 January. In a 9 April editorial that appeared in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, she wrote:
After a week of protests I was detained by the security forces in the middle of the night. This was to become a defining moment in the Yemeni revolution: media outlets reported my detention and demonstrations erupted in most provinces of the country; they were organised by students, civil society activists and politicians. The pressure on the government was intense, and I was released after 36 hours in a women's prison, where I was kept in chains.
She then led another protest on 29 January where she called for a "Day of Rage" on 3 February similar to that of the 2011 Egyptian revolution
2011 Egyptian revolution
The 2011 Egyptian revolution took place following a popular uprising that began on Tuesday, 25 January 2011 and is still continuing as of November 2011. The uprising was mainly a campaign of non-violent civil resistance, which featured a series of demonstrations, marches, acts of civil...
that were in turn inspired by the 2010–2011 Tunisian revolution
Tunisian revolution
The Tunisian Revolution is an intensive campaign of civil resistance, including a series of street demonstrations taking place in Tunisia. The events began in December 2010 and led to the ousting of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011...
. On 17 March, she was re-arrested amidst ongoing protests. Speaking of the uprising she had said that: "We will continue until the fall of Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime...We have the Southern Movement in the south, the (Shia) Huthi rebels in the north, and parliamentary opposition...But what's most important now is the jasmine revolution." She has set at the protest camp for months along with her husband.
Karman has had some tense disagreements with other organisers, especially after she urged protesters to march to the Presidential Palace in May as a response to the killing of 13 protesters by security forces.
On 18 June she wrote an article entitled "Yemen's Unfinished Revolution" in the New York Times in which she assailed the United States and Saudi Arabia for their support for the "corrupt" Saleh regime in Yemen because they "used their influence to ensure that members of the old regime remain in power and the status quo is maintained." She argued that American intervention in Yemen was motivated by the war on terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
and was not responsive to either the human rights abuses in Yemen or the calls from Yemen’s democracy movement. She affirmed that the protesters in Yemen also wanted stability in the country and region. In an interview on Democracy Now!
Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
, Karman said, "In our weekly protests in front of the cabinet, we called on the government to allow people to have freedom of speech and for people to be able to own online newspapers. We knew and know that freedom of speech is the door to democracy and justice, and also that part of the freedom of speech is the freedom of movement... The culture of freedom and protests spread all over Yemen. Every time we stood up for our rights the government answered with violence or interfered in our rights...." She credited Tunisia for inspiring others around the Middle East for the Arab Spring protests.
During the protests, Karman was part of a large number of women activists -- up to 30 percent of the protestors -- demanding change in Yemen. On 16 October, government snipers in Taiz shot and killed Aziza Othman Kaleb, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
reported she was the first woman to have been killed during the Yemen protests but could not verify this claim. Ten days later, women in Sana'a protested against the violent force used against them by burning their makrama.
Involvement of international government organizations
After the Nobel Peace Prize announcement, Tawakel Karman became increasingly involved in mobilizing world opinion and United Nations Security Council members to assist the protesters in ousting Saleh and bringing him before the international court.Karman travelled to Washington, D.C., where she said that the protests as "an expression of rejection of the injustice that the Saleh regime has imposed on them. And this is a new stage for the Yemeni women, because they will not hide behind veils or behind walls or anything else." She was then said to have lobbied the United Nations Security Council and the United States not to make deal that would pardon Saleh, to freeze his assets and to support the protesters. The United Nations Security Council
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
then voted 15-0 on 21 October on Security Council Resolution 2014 that "strongly condemns" Saleh's government for the use of deadly force against protesters, but it also backed the Gulf Cooperation Council's (GCC) initiative that would give Saleh immunity from prosecution should he resign. Karman, who was present for the vote, criticised the Council's support for the GCC's proposal and instead advocated that Saleh stand trial at the International Criminal Court
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...
.
Karman also met the United States' Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...
on 28 October to discuss the same United Nations Resolution, to which Clinton said that "the United States supports a democratic transition in Yemen and the rights of the people of Yemen – men and women – to choose their own leaders and futures." Karman responded to the comment in saying that "in Yemen, it has been nine months that people have been camped in the squares. Until now we didn't see that Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
came to value the sacrifice of the Yemeni people. Instead the American administration is giving guarantees to Saleh."
2011 Nobel Peace Prize
Karman became the first Arab woman, the youngest person ever to become a Nobel Peace Laureate and the category's second muslim woman. At 32, Tawakel Karman is the youngest winner of a Nobel Peace Prize. She is younger (born 7 February 1979) than Mairead Maguire (born 27 January 1944), who was a co-recipient of the award in 1976 and previously held that record. In 2003, Shirin EbadiShirin Ebadi
Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, a former judge and human rights activist and founder of Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. On 10 October 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially women's,...
was the first Persian woman and first muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Before the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded, only 12 other women had ever been recipients in its 110 years, and now there are 15 women.
Karman, along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee
Leymah Gbowee
Leymah Roberta Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist responsible for leading a women's peace movement that brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. This led to the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in Liberia, the first African nation with a female president...
, were the co-recipients of the the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
"for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work." Of Karman, the Nobel Committee said: "In the most trying circumstances, both before and during the 'Arab spring', Tawakkul Karman has played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen." The Nobel Committee cited the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted in 2000, which states that women and children suffer great harm from war and political stability and that women must have a larger influence and role in peacemaking activities; it also "[c]alls on all actors involved, when negotiating and implementing peace agreements, to adopt a gender perspective."
Upon announcing the award, former Norwegian Prime Minister and chairman of the committee to decide the award Thorbjorn Jagland said: "We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society." He later added that the prize was "a very important signal to women all over the world" and that, despite the events of the Arab Spring
Arab Spring
The Arab Spring , otherwise known as the Arab Awakening, is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world that began on Saturday, 18 December 2010...
, "there are many other positive developments in the world that we have looked at. I think it is a little strange that researchers and others have not seen them." He had earlier said the prize for the year would be "very powerful... but at the same time very unifying [and would] not create as strong reactions from a single country as it did last year [with Liu Xiaobo
Liu Xiaobo
Liu Xiaobo is a Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist who called for political reforms and the end of communist single-party rule in China...
]." The 2011 prize is to be divided equally among the three recipients, from a total of 10 million Swedish kronor.
In reaction to the award Karman, while camped out in Sana'a during ongoing anti-government protests, said: "I didn’t expect it. It came as a total surprise. This is a victory for Arabs around the world and a victory for Arab women" and that the award was a "victory of our peaceful revolution. I am so happy, and I give this award to all of the youth and all of the women across the Arab world, in Egypt, in Tunisia. We cannot build our country or any country in the world without peace," adding that it was also for "Libya, Syria and Yemen and all the youth and women, this is a victory for our demand for citizenship and human rights," that "all Yemenis [are] happy over the prize. The fight for democratic Yemen will continue," that she "dedicate[s] it to all the martyrs and wounded of the Arab Spring… in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Syria and to all the free people who are fighting for their rights and freedoms" and "I dedicate it to all Yemenis who preferred to make their revolution peaceful by facing the snipers with flowers. It is for the Yemeni women, for the peaceful protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, and all the Arab world." She also said she had not known about the nomination and had found out about the award via television.
Post-Nobel Prize
After the announcement, Karman traveled to QatarQatar
Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
where she met with Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and also requested the Doha Centre for Media Freedom's assistance to set up a television and radio station, which would be named Balqis, in honour of the Queen of Sheba, in order to support female journalists and to broadly educate Yemeni journalists.
She also made a video message in Washington, D.C. on 25 October on the occasion of the release of the 14th annual report of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (OBS) by the International Federation of Human Rights
International Federation of Human Rights
The International Federation for Human Rights is a non-governmental federation for human rights organizations. Founded in 1922, FIDH is the oldest international human rights organisation worldwide and today brings together 164 member organisations in over 100 countries.FIDH is nonpartisan,...
(FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture
World Organisation Against Torture
The World Organisation Against Torture is the world’s largest coalition of non-governmental organisations fighting against arbitrary detention, torture, summary and extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances and other forms of violence...
(OMCT). The report included information about the Arab Spring
Arab Spring
The Arab Spring , otherwise known as the Arab Awakening, is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world that began on Saturday, 18 December 2010...
, Yemen, and Karman.
She has been selected as the first place of the FB top 100 global thinkers of 2011.Moh441 (talk) 22:11, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
External links
- Renowned activist and press freedom advocate Tawakul Karman, interviewed by Nadia Al-Sakkaf, Yemen TimesYemen TimesThe Yemen Times is unified Yemen's first and most widely-read independent English-language newspaper. The paper is published twice-weekly and has its own printing press, advertising associates and news service....
, 17 June 2010 - Tawakel Karman interview with Al Jazeera
- Press Conference of 2011 Nobel Laureate, Tawakkul Karman Women's eNews.